<\/picture><\/div>\n<\/a>Courtesy of FMLY\/Island Records.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nMost breakup albums aim for the dirtiest thing the singer could possibly say, and then say it. Jessie Reyez just keeps going back for the worst and then recoils. On <\/span>A Little Vengeance<\/em>, she performs like a person who knows where all the bodies are buried but would rather make sure you know that she\u2019s consciously electing not to exhume them. She sings and speaks, slips into a rap cadence where a statement needs some muscle and across all of it, maintains a mental tally of everything she could do to the man who wronged her and chooses not to do them. <\/span><\/p>\nThe clearest illustration is \u201cDUSTY,\u201d where she iterates each piece of leverage she holds over the ex and announces, line by line, that she will not use them. \u201cYou lucky I don\u2019t hit your wife and tell her that you still reach out,\u201d she sings, then \u201cYou lucky I don\u2019t leak those pics that you still got the nerve to send.\u201d The threats are specific, and the mercy conditional. Then she comes through with a definition exercise that determines what kind of man is dusty. \u201cIf he asks what you bring to the table, he\u2019s dusty\/If he uses the word \u2018high value,\u2019 he\u2019s dusty.\u201d On \u201cMADAME JOYCE\u2019S INTERLUDE,\u201d she lets her guard completely down for a story about the one time she didn\u2019t hold back her leverage, going through his phone and changing every suspicious woman\u2019s number by a digit so they\u2019d no longer reach him. \u201cI would say that was art, that was strategy,\u201d she states, quite satisfied. The switched digit lands more impactful than anything subsequent she attempts for peace. By \u201cSALT\u201d the threats held in reserve have a name: she has a fuck you list, and she says she will be petty until she has to have it beaten out of her.<\/p>\n
The cadence does most of the work of sorting the emotions. When she is accusing, her cadence will constrict, and the singing will loosen in the throat to something much more conversational. \u201cN.Y.F.F.\u201d is a chant built out of a kiss-off; the hook: a flat four-word dismissal \u201cDon\u2019t call me, I ain\u2019t your fucking friend.\u201d The song\u2019s strongest diss, though, is the one that sounds almost reasonable: \u201cBut you\u2019re allergic to the truth\/Like the truth just ain\u2019t your shoe size.\u201d By the end, she is already writing him off as a missed call and his women as \u201cPinocchio them hoes\u201d (contempt added like a garnish). \u201c99%\u201d places this same disgust onto a grid and counts up its grievances: \u201cOne, boy, your ass lied too much\/Two, all we did was fight and fuck\/Three, you don\u2019t believe in therapy.\u201d The melody loosens when the anger does.<\/p>\n